Real People, Real Henna: "Autumn's Auburn"
Autumn's Hennaed hair in the sun and in the shade
Then, I add more lemon juice until it's a little thinner than yogurt, and wait another 2-4 hours. I sit outside to do it, and cover the patio in newspaper and myself in old towels and saran wrap.
Then my faithful helper clips hair hair into about 20-30 sections. He grabs henna by the handful, coating the sections and pinning them back. Once all the sections are covered, he undoes the clips and we both smear the rest in, then wrap it up in saran wrap. If it's sunny I'll sit outside as long as I can take the heat, and I leave the paste on for at least 4 hours. Then I wash it out in the shower using about 1/3 of a bottle of cheap conditioner. It ends up shiner, smoother, fuller, and of course, orangey. It takes about 4 days for the color to deepen, on my dark brown hair it looks dark auburn-brown, and in the sun, a very bright auburn. The strands that I had that were bleached started out dark orange, now they're light red.
Notes and references
Real People, Real Henna: General advice: https://www.mehandi.com/article-a/417.htm
Henna: https://www.mehandi.com/Mehandi-com-Ancient-Sunrise-Henna-for-Hair-s/121.htm
Don’t have fruit juice on hand? Keep some fruit acid powders in your cupboard:
https://www.mehandi.com/Fruit-Acid-for-henna-dye-release-s/299.htm
More info on mildly acidic mixes: https://www.tapdancinglizard.com/henna-and-acidic-mixes/
Ancient Sunrise henna for hair kits with everything included: https://www.mehandi.com/Mehandi-com-Ancient-Sunrise-Henna-for-Hair-Kits-s/124.htm
Chemical hair dye allergy:https://www.tapdancinglizard.com/henna-for-hair-2/ pp.9-17
Video How-Tos
Root touchup with henna: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/255292964
How to mix Ancient Sunrise henna: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/477289229